


It's just the two of us now

by Baryshnikov



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Control, Culpability, Established Relationship, Love, M/M, Romance, commitment issues, what is love?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-16 10:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21506218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: How culpable was he for falling in love?
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Comments: 3
Kudos: 81





	It's just the two of us now

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably the sweetest thing I've ever written for these two, and it's still not that sweet.

Culpability.

It was a mere word that Tom found himself musing on far more than he would like. For it was just a little word; there was no _inherent_ meaning to it, at least, nothing beyond the ordinary, nothing sinister slid itself between the letters.

Yet, Tom could not help but wonder, how culpable was he in the loss of his heart?

Did he intend to give it away? Or was he reckless as to its fate? Perhaps, he had paid so little attention that he was simply negligent as to its straying. But, however, much he wanted for an answer, his mind would not supply him with one. 

Only more musing. 

Hence, he stood with his back to the study door, his hand tapping on the arm of the sofa beside him, smoothing over the cracking leather that neither of them wanted to replace. He was escaping. Just for a moment from the fullness of the sitting room.

The swarm of people, spilling over the edges of each room; taking up every single space available until they were suffocating the house, choking it with their breathing and their shuffling and their dull conversation. Tom would not deny that these people annoyed him. He _couldn’t_ deny it even if he wanted to.

But it was the price of being young and extraordinary.

He had learnt years ago that between his politics and Harry’s quidditch, they were the most fashionable accessory for the old and the wilting. Nowadays, there were always people who needed to be… placated; whether that was through conversation or debate or simple entertainment, it never seemed to matter. All that did matter was how rare these moments had become.

Just the two of them, alone. 

It had become like school again, stealing moment when no was looking; kisses in the corridor before they walked out, both smiling those artificial smiles, though their motivations were undeniably different. Tom smiled because it would get him what he wanted in the end; short term pain for long term gain, as it were. But Harry smiled because it was the polite thing to do, because he was sweet in ways he didn’t even understand. 

He was just so _nice_. 

Tom sighed and cast his eyes across the room. Harry was already in here, and he had been so for a good five minutes before Tom could extract himself to join him. 

Harry was sitting on the edge of the desk, over by the window, watching the sun turn the sky to a cornfield. He looked lovely like that; with the sun catching the edge of his face in its grasp, caressing him with both light and shadow, and when he was relaxed and thought that no one was watching.

And no one who mattered _was_ watching, only Tom, and he had learnt that he didn’t mind what shade of morality Harry decided to wear. Well, he hardly could complain given his personal preferences leant much closer to charcoal than snow.

With another sigh, Tom stepped away from the door and started to walk across the room. Sometimes he regretted having the wood floor here as ruined that element of surprise he’d always so relied upon. But, then again, what they had now was almost better than that. 

As, for every click of his shoes on the wood, there was a corresponding micro-expression somewhere on Harry’s person. Whether it was the loosening of his shoulders, or the sigh on his lips, or the flexing of his hand. And there would have been more if Tom could see his face; if he had the opportunity to watch the whole performance of emotions that must play out as Harry knew what was coming. 

But Tom just stood a step behind him, listening to the still loud sounds of people babbling on the other side of the door. He could have stood right beside Harry, but Tom had never liked the sun, and, he was aware of the speculations that such an opinion had, but he simply didn’t like the way is spread across his skin like a disease, colouring everything it touched in this gilded hue that made him uncomfortable. Being beneath its glare made Tom feel like he was being swathed in gold, swallowed by the light until he could hardly breathe.

But he _might_ stand in it for Harry’s sake.

There were innumerable things that he might do for Harry, and Harry alone. They ranged from the impossibility of moving mountains to the mundane of indulging his affections, even in public places, even with people watching. 

Instead though, he merely rested his hand against the small of Harry’s back and smiled when Harry curved himself toward him. “What are you thinking about?” Tom said quietly, enough to keep this small safe haven burning, without inviting the intense scrutiny they usually endured. 

Harry didn’t turn to face him, nor he didn’t lean against him; all he did was relax into Tom’s touch. His shoulders slackening and the air leaving his lung in a gentle sigh.  
“I’m thinking about you,” he murmured, still facing the wall of gold spilling out across the sky, “it’s always you.”

Tom smiled again, and let his hand wander, as a spider might, up along the column of Harry’s spine. Touching every bone through his shirt, feeling each ridge and each dip until his fingers reached the very top, and he could hold the nape of Harry’s neck.

He’d never admit what doing this made him feel. He’d never say aloud, that feeling Harry go slack under his hands made a fuzziness grow like moss inside his ribcage, but that didn’t stop the fact. Some part of him would have liked to express it… normally. To have the right, _genuine_ words on his tongue to express the plethora of feelings that spread as algae do, its tendrils swelling every day and stealing away the oxygen from his lungs. 

But he wasn’t like that.

So, rather than something soft and sappy, Tom tightened the grip of his fingers against Harry’s neck, feeling the coolness of his skin when it was out of the sun. And although it was just the nape, he felt how Harry tensed in the same way he always did.  
“Why are you thinking about me?” he said softly; of course, he didn’t need to hear it, it was always the same reason said in the same words, but maybe that was why. Maybe he had grown to like the simple security of having Harry’s heart in his hand. 

“Because I like you,” Harry said, still watching the window and a little bird that flittered over the grass.

“Is that all?” Tom murmured, “you only _like_ me?” As he said it, his fingers began to crawl their way around to the front of Harry’s neck. Just the tips of his nails starting to scratch the muscles and the arteries and the veins that lined his throat; sometimes Tom liked to think he could feel Harry’s blood below the skin. Just feel it pulsing through him, and just knowing that he could cut it off if he wanted.

Not that he ever would.

For, whether he would admit it publicly or not, he knew the act of falling in love was already complete.

And there was nowhere left to go but deeper in, as though love were well with no bottom, or, a cavern with no end. It was this unboundedness about love that made Tom so uncomfortable; it was too wide; an expansive rambling of words and gestures and commitments that chewed at the edges of his stomach. 

That was why he held Harry’s throat because… because it gave a little control back to the moment. In this swirling chaos of feelings that love engendered, he could have a moment of clarity when his fingers were moulded to Harry’s skin.

It was an insurance policy.

He could end this in the most horrific way, whenever he wanted. 

And that was a terrible way to think. Monstrous even, that wringing the neck of the one person who mattered more than anything in the world had even crossed his mind. But it had, and Harry knew it had, but he still didn’t back away when Tom held his throat and demanded his attention.

“You know it’s because I love you,” Harry said like a scratch on a record, stopping the music inside Tom’s head. 

He swallowed. 

The space was there, hanging, gaping even. So wide and empty, just waiting for Tom to return the compliment. And he nearly did, every time that they stood before the window, and watched the sun slide down, he thought about saying it. Every time they stood across from each other, with twenty people between them, he thought about saying it. And every time they came home from work and just sat together, Harry’s head on his shoulder, he thought about saying it. 

But that would make him truly culpable, wouldn’t it?

If he said that he loved Harry back, then that was _intention_. If he admitted that he liked him, that he loved him even, then that was filled to the brim with purposefulness, and spilling over with knowledge, and he could no longer deny to himself what he had been denying for so long. And then, well, his fate would be sealed like a sentence for a crime. 

A beautiful crime, but a crime, nonetheless. 

“We should go back,” he said softly, already loosening his grip on Harry’s neck and starting to turn away, like, somehow that would make all the things that supposed to be said disappear again, like trying to shutting up Pandora’s box after it had been opened. 

But, before he could retreat back the anonymity of people, Harry clasped at his hand. “I want you to stay,” he said, “just for a few more minutes.” There was such a sweetness, and it was probably deliberate because Harry _knew_ Tom couldn’t resist vulnerability. Even by his own volition, he would admit he was too much of an opportunist, taking what he wanted as it came available like a vulture around carrion.

So, he let Harry drag him back, in the same way that he dragged him back every time he tried to leave. And, as he stood there, touching Harry’s neck, and feeling the edge of the sun start to creep onto his fingertips, Tom knew that soon he’d have to face up to his own culpability, and serve whatever sentence love handed to him.

**Author's Note:**

> This sort of just happened and I have really no idea what it was supposed to be, so apologies for that.


End file.
